By Eddy Mojena
In our school evaluations and the rules how to follow them have been implemented in the past so we just follow what has been already in place.
Dawn,
It sounds good. And if it works for you, that's great. My thought is we want to measure learning fairly and accurately. That's what any grading system should try to achieve.
Barry Westling
I use a point system that divides the points out between homework, in-class/lab activities, tests, special projects and final exam. Attendance also counts in this equation. I try to divide out the points so that the students must demonstrate they are performing in all of the required areas. If they fail to perform in one area, it affects their grade, etc. It seems to work pretty well, and so far I have not had anyone challenge my system, as it is easy to understand and strongly formulaic.
Kyle,
While formal evaluation may be limited, there's nothing adverse to assessing students informally, every day if that's desired or required. Juyst asking students questions is one way to improve critical thinking skills, and is aligned with Socractic Questioning, which strives for learning through the students own reasoning abilities. Nothing ever has to be documented necessarily, but contributes greatly to the instructors perspective of what learning has occurred.
Barry Westling
Unfortunately my institution does not allow a variety of ways to be evaluated. They limit us to tests and practical evaluations. While tests are quite straight-forward the practical evaluations allow us the most leniency as we typically use a rubric style grading.
Renee,
Each instructor has to choose what works best for them. I choose not to give extra credit, as I feel it has little contribution to learning in the classes I teach. Perhaps in other classes, it has a place. For me, not.
Barry Westling
In my situation, I teach an 8-day course that follows a grading policy that has been developed by my school's administrative department. I will sometimes modify this policy to fit specific/unique classroom circumstances, however, such as providing extra credit assignments to students who offer to take on additional assignments. I make sure that my extra credit points are limited to not exceed maximum class points to keep the situation fair.
Virginia,
For a whole course, I look to the objectives. Then I determine what the most important information a student leaving the class should possess. Next I look at how I can most accuraetly assess that information. Among the common categories of components are quizzes, projects, homework, and exams. There many others, depending on the type of class. Determining the right balance of component weight may take a little trial and error. In the end, we want to make sure we are measuring student learning, not the best way to assign a grade. What good is a grade if the student doesn't understand the material? Hope this gives some ideas to consider.
Barry Westling
I am not quite sure how that really works. I am a substitute instructor. That is why I was asking if it is a good idea for subs to create an evaluation. I'm not sure the criteria for that.
Daniel,
I think grading rubrics help diminish the subjectivity in grading most components (projects, homework, essays, exams, etc). Rubrics work because both instructor and student know in advance what the criteria is and how they will be evaluated. Balance and component weight is very important. Sometimes it takes some trial and error to arrive at a "sweet spot" for the best combination. What I've learned is tweaking is often needed in order to find how we can best accurately and fairly measure student learning.
Barry Westling
One item not mentioned in the module is dtermining exactly what we want the students to learn and how we want to evaluate that. For example, a subjective evaluation must have parameters for minimum performance.
Paul,
Yes, I agree. Actually both are important, but knowledge without application is of little use, especially when we are preparing folks for the workplace. Getting students to think critically along with mastery of essential skills prepares them for lifelong success, both in work and in their personal lives.
Barry Westling
Instructing at a trade school, I have to ultimately assess a students ability to perform in the field. Although, academic scores are important, I focus my attention on skills shown during the lab (practical) lessons. Good grades won't help, if they can't do the actual job. Speed and accuracy on the troubleshooting machines is what I concentrate on.
Terry,
This is a great way to approach grading. As in all classes, we want to make sure that whatever system or process we use, it accurately and clearly measures learning. Some systems look sound, but the weight is not rightly distributed, so that, in the worst case, students do lots of busy work to earn points, but their grade does not reflect their learning which may have come mainly from the project, or preparing for exams (exam scores), etc. Reviewing is very important, and the more students can do this on their own, the more they will learn. However, this category is rarely given much weight.
Barry Westling
In one of my courses, I have broken the evaluation into 5 major components. The greatest weight is given to chapter exams. The second weighting is given to homework, quizzes, and study guide and workbook completion. The next two categories are weighed equally; 1) mid-term and final exams, and 2) participation (this includes both group exercises and individual participation). The final evaluation criteria is for the course project. This involves making a professional reference guide.
The evaluation process is well-defined in the syllabus and I thoroughly review this on the first day of class.
I give quizzes every class period and I explain that this is not so much for a grade but to measure their progress and make necessary changes before the chapter exams. I emphasize to review wrong answers on the quiz and to meet with me if they do not understand the concept.
I'm trying to encourage critical thinking by having the students look at all aspects of a question or problem. On some multiple-choice questions, if the student can convincingly use their acquired knowledge in the course and explain their reasoning process, I will occasionally give them credit for their thought process.
After the first two weeks of class I can usually tell which students are self-learners and which will need continual prodding to complete the assigned work. I provide extra tutoring for those that are not scoring well on quizzes or exams.
The evaluation process is a method to inform the students if they will succeed in their career path.
Leon,
As stated ealier, we can evaluate in many ways throught the day. Methods include Q&A, witten and verbal quizzes and tests, observation of discussions, ect. These methods may or may not be used to formulate or compute into the grade. But they do help us understand how much or to what degree learning is (or has) occurred.
Barry Westling
Review the institution's policy first on the recommended methods of evaluation.
Use credible methods for that course content.
Use a mix of methods to cater for diverse learning styles.
Leon Guendoo
Aarti,
For me, I think the most important consideration is whether I am acuruately measuring learning. I try to include as much variety in the grading components due to the different learning styles the students possess.
Barry Westling
We have a standard evaluation system for all our students taking the classes I teach. We assign points for homework, tests, and a presentation (for one of my classes). We have students do a documented self-evaluation in the sixth week of the course. They record their grade up until that point and provide comments/ suggestions on how they can improve going forward. They get a summative evaluation at the end of the course from me.
A Savoor
Sandhya,
Oftentimes, many instructors are faced with a pre-established grading system. Evaluating student performance is different from creating a grading system. We can evaluate students every - even througout the day. I "check for understanding" continuously when I have a lecture segment. I'll go just so far, then ramdomly call on a student to summarize. If correct, great, and I move on. If not, I'll call on another student at random. If after three students there is not clear understanding, I go back and review the material. This is also a way to keep students engaged because they never know which name is going to be called.
Barry Westling
